A Quote by Ambrose Bierce

MUGWUMP, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt.

Ambrose Bierce

Quote Topics

Addicted Afflicted Contempt Independence Politics Respect Self Self-Respect Term Vice

Quote Author

Ambrose Bierce
American - Journalist
June 24, 1842 - 1914

The enemies of Christ ... could not bear his independence; his "Give the emperor that which is the emperor's" showed a contempt for the affairs of state and its politics for the moral order that their self-respect would not let them tolerate.

John Carroll

Old age adds to the respect due to virtue, but it takes nothing from the contempt inspired by vice; it whitens only the hair.

Ira Gershwin

What we ought not do is play politics with those who've been afflicted by disasters. This should not be controversial. Stop playing politics, do the right thing for the country and let's make sure we're not making politics with disaster relief.

David Plouffe

Leaders have devoted themselves to politics, little knowing, it seems that political independence disappears without economic independence that economic independence is the foundation of political independence.

Booker T. Washington

The politics of personal destruction, the politics of division, the politics of fear, it's all there. It helps you to define the politics of moderation - the politics of democratic respect, the politics of hope - more clearly.

Michael Ignatieff

People always say be true to yourself. But that’s misleading, because there are two selves. There’s your short term self, and there’s your long term self. And if you’re only true to your short term self, your long term self slowly decays.

Brandon Stanton

A schmuck is a general term of disrespect. It's a term of contempt and derision. It applies to a lot of people.

Jackie Mason

To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect, and their oneness.

Mahatma Gandhi

Man is more sensitive to the contempt of others than to self-contempt.

Friedrich Nietzsche

People need self-respect, but self-respect must be earned - it cannot be self-respect if it's not earned - and the only way to earn anything is to achieve it in the face of the possibility of failing.

Charles A. Murray

No church that panders to the zeitgeist deserves respect, and very shortly it will not get respect, except from those who find it politically useful, and that is less respect than disguised contempt.

Robert Bork

The term 'the American Left' is as near to being meaningless or nonsensical as any term could really be in politics. It isn't really a force in politics anymore. And it would do well to ask itself why that is.

Christopher Hitchens

It is disgraceful to live at the cost of one's self-respect. Self-respect is the most vital factor in life. Without it, man is a cipher. To live worthily with self-respect, one has to overcome difficulties. It is out of hard and ceaseless struggle alone that one derives strength, confidence and recognition.

B. R. Ambedkar

Without self-respect there can be no genuine success. Success won at the cost of self-respect is not success ? for what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own self-respect.

B. C. Forbes

That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is most often unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.